by Judy Delton and how I will in the future try much harder to avoid them.
1. Don't Procrastinate
Ouch, that one stings hard I am notorious for procrastination, or maybe I should call it spontaneous boredom. I might start something get halfway through and either forget where I was heading or else just let something else catch my attention. As many will probably see from my breaks in writing from time to time I go til I get tired of going and then I pop up again later. No it isn't because "Oh well it's the beginning of the month I better write something", it's more "hmm I wonder, meh well let me go head and put it other so I can think on it again later".
Basically I am trying to get myself to look at some blog somewhere and just write something. I don't care if its read by 2 people or 1000 just talk let my mind roam and allow any who wish to follow.
3. Don't try to write the best story or article in the world. Don't be afraid to fail
While I am no stranger to failure, that doesn't mean I am a glutton for it either. And while she wrote this to encourage writers this is for anyone with a dream. Seriously, even the Greatest to ever do your dream didn't always win. I can pick sports, movies, books, TV shows, comedy, you name it there is a great who you say "Man he/she was always awesome" and I can show you some back story where if they had been afraid of failure you would never know their name. Do your best and keep on trying, as the saying goes practice makes perfect and part of practicing it is actually doing it. I remember being that short scrawny 5 foot kid on the basketball court nobody would pick or pass the ball to, I made myself a better rebounder by always going after the ball and learning to time it. Calling "Next" so that who ever lost sooner or later I would get to pick, the more I pushed and fought for position the stronger I got and better I learned how to do it, and it also improved my shot because it wasn't always a "desperate heave". And eventually people started picking me because I usually did get the ball, it's about determination and heart.
5. Don't edit as you write. Don't stop to admire -or chastise- you work.
Yeah this is another bad habit, now while I can argue that being a blogger I actually need to be a little quicker on the uptake and do need to practice some edit as I go, this follows number 3 quite well and she's write on the money. I tend to get a lot more out if I edit AFTER I finish my piece then if I do it 2 sentences in. Maybe 3 paragraphs but not two sentences it doesn't seem like much but I can go back and add, remove or rewrite after those three paragraphs and see if I still feel the same way when I get done. As I hope I have rambled less in my more pointed posts(you know the ones where the object is NOT to ramble or report my momentary whims) part of it is because after I have gotten a good distance into it I have gone back to edit it, and then if agreeing with myself after reading it through continuing on. Or sometimes just stopping it where I left it and allowing folks to take a breath(no this won't be one of those stopping to let you take a breath posts).
6. Don't generalize use specific images
For a rambler like me this is like, "whaaaa" I mean come on sometimes your mind gets on that journey and it's just rolling down the Lazy River at the Water Park. Not a thought in your head or a worry in your mind, your fingers are hitting the keys and everything just feels write. Since your thoughts aren't specific neither are the images, granted she has a point if it's nothing specific why would you want to read it. I mean you can just sit back and day dream on your own why read mine if I don't make it interesting?
12. Don't forget your theme
Ah yes the bane of my existence, one of the reasons why I blog is because my head is always cluttered with a million thoughts(not that I am the only one), as such sometimes a very specific thought gets lost in the clutter as EVERYTHING tries to escape(by the way that right there is breaking one of her mistakes over punctuating this time by capitalizing, but hey sometimes it is warranted). When I write alot this trend seems to slow a little but in times of mental molasses the second something thaws that which can escape tries to escape. I admit that is why I pretty much stopped the X-men First Class review, my inner X-men Geek would not stop coming out I was going into so much detail on Magneto, Charles Xavier and Mystique that the movie was completely getting lost. But then I also felt guilty because how was I gonna do other reviews and skip that one, oh well maybe I will go back and review them all later.
14. Don't lose your balance and don't digress
Who me Digress? Anytime you read a book on a hobby you are hopefully looking for some honest help and criticism with what you are doing. Before I ever noticed her book I had well over a thousand hits, at least 4 blogs and a decent amount of flow I also knew for a fact that I was king of digression(as well as typos). So for me I hope that while some of my asides may add to the overall feeling of a piece, I'm trying to limit them and possibly make them a piece of their own later.
17. Don't preach or opinionate. Let the reader discover for himself
I have an opinion, this much is true I'm sure if I look over time I probably have a few thousand opinions, posted everywhere on the internet, for all to see. Thing is, most times I'm curious to how others feel. Now I'm not always in the mood to ask a question, I want to express how I see it and hopefully get you to tell me how you see it. Whether you agree, disagree, feel along the same lines with a few forks here and there doesn't matter what do you think. I try not to be too preachy(unless I feel it's a preachy moment) and while I'm sure I fail at times, I try to inject my intellect not my opinion into some posts because well, I want to give you more my reasoned thoughts than just my opinion. I mean my opinion is that Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream is the greatest flavor of all times, I think that the cooling sensation provided by Mint added in most foods gives us all fond memories thus why mint+ is so prevalent on the store shelves.
19. Don't neglect research but don't overdue it
Yeah that would be the X-men review, man I was putting a good 20+ years of X-men comic reading into that review. I don't even know how or when I started to get so wordy with it but it was a mess, I just had to stop I'm taking this hiatus so I can perhaps get a little further away from the source material. This summer was a great one for me being a comic book fan, especially with so many of the marvel stories making money and including some nice cameos. Thing is, being that most of it was Marvel yeah that gave me extreme diarrhea of the fingers gotta find a way to curb that a little.
There are actually a few more but while I did not give away the actual paragraphs with all these headings I don't think it fair to "give away the ending" so to speak. If you are a writer, blogger, poet, or hell anyone who is about to attempt to chase their dream I recommend reading this book. I think you will see yourself at many of your most nail biting crossroads in it, Ms. Delton touches many cords deftly but not too harshly. Some may see this as light reading but it is nourishment for those with dreams starving on the window sill because they are afraid to over water them, especially if they swear they have a brown thumb.
Well on to my last and final library book, if you were ever curious should you pick this book up I hope that I was able to shine a little light inside before you take the plunge, the water really is fine.
No comments:
Post a Comment